Petal jumped as Diamond squealed and said, “My paws!”
“Whatever is it?” Petal asked, quickly hopping over to her friend. “Did you get stung by something? Does it hurt?”
“No, but I’m going to be in big trouble when my mom sees my fur has gone purple!” Diamond held out her paws. Her beautiful white fur was stained bright purple from the silkleaf.
Petal gasped as she and Ruby looked at their own paws—theirs were just as purple. The patches were worse than Ruby’s blackberry stains from making the Berry Bake yesterday!
Ruby shrugged as she plucked another pawful of silkleaf. “Never mind, there’s nothing we can do about it now.”
“It must have been because the leaves are wet,” said Petal. She examined the silkleaf she’d collected in her paws and tried not to let her ears dangle in them. “Do you think we have enough?”
Diamond didn’t reply. She was still staring at her purple-splattered white fur.
“I think so,” Ruby said. “Let’s go home before it gets dark.”
The next morning, Ruby, Petal, and Diamond met before the sun rose. They wanted to visit Mr. Nibble without the risk of Sky seeing them.
Ruby lifted their teacher’s parsnip-shaped door knocker, and let it clatter against the wooden front door. They waited in the dark and quiet—it seemed no other bunny in Bright Burrow was up yet. After a few moments, Mr. Nibble swung open the door. By the light coming from inside his burrow, they could see he was wearing a red stripy nightcap.
Petal heard Ruby giggling. She thought Mr. Nibble looked rather silly, too, but she didn’t want to get in trouble with their teacher. Especially not today, when they needed his help. Luckily, Mr. Nibble didn’t seem to notice Ruby—he was yawning too much for that.
“Is … ahhhh … something wrong?” he said sleepily. “Are you … ahhhh … in trouble?”
“Oh no,” Ruby said quickly. “We just brought you some purple silkleaf!” She held out a moss-weave basket filled with the silkleaves they’d picked. Mr. Nibble peered at it with his paws behind his back.
“You could have given this to me at school,” Mr. Nibble said, still not taking the basket from Ruby.
“Actually, we needed to speak to you outside of school.” Petal flapped her huge ears nervously, then added, “Mr. Nibble, please will you let Sky join the Bouncers for Bounce-a-Lot?”
Mr. Nibble didn’t say anything for a moment, but his graying whiskers twitched up and down. Petal hoped that was a good sign.
Finally, their teacher opened his mouth. “I thought you three bunnies were better than that! I will not put Sky in the team just because you brought me silkleaf. You cannot try to bribe me like this!”
Diamond hid behind Petal. She’d never seen their teacher so angry.
“And anyway,” Mr. Nibble continued, “I like pink silkleaf best, not purple!”
“Pink silkleaf? Where does that grow?” Petal whispered to Ruby.
Ruby shrugged. It definitely wasn’t on her list of herbs that grew in Basil Forest!
At that very moment, the sun rose above the horizon, lighting up Bright Burrow as the new day began. Mr. Nibble shrieked and pointed behind them. “What have you done to my garden?”
The friends looked backward at his neat, green lawn. Except it wasn’t so neat and green anymore—they’d tracked purple paw prints all over it, and now it looked like a patchwork quilt!
Oh no! thought Diamond. She started rubbing at the grass with her tail, ruining the heart-shape style, but all that did was spread the purple farther across the grass. If only she’d kept the dock leaves on her paws that her dad had made her wear last night—he’d taken one look at her when she’d returned from Basil Forest and wouldn’t let her enter their burrow without her tying them on!
Now there is no way Mr. Nibble will change his mind, thought Ruby. It was such bad luck! “We’re so sorry, Mr. Nibble,” Ruby said.
“But if it rains again, the purple might wash away,” Petal suggested, trying to make things better.
Mr. Nibble sighed. “Hmm, we’ll see! Now leave me to my peace before school starts, and please try to get rid of those fur-stains on your paws between now and then. I don’t want my classroom covered in purple prints, too!”
Petal, Ruby, and Diamond scampered away carefully, avoiding the lawn, as Mr. Nibble ducked back into his burrow, mumbling to himself.
“What are we going to do now?” Petal asked her friends. As she ran, Petal rubbed her front paws together to try to get rid of the stains. “We’re back to square one!”
“Look at the Luck Rainbow!” said Ruby. She, Diamond, and Petal were scampering toward Sparkle River so they could wash themselves, leaving a trail of purple prints on the ground behind them. “The indigo arc on the rainbow is shining so brightly today.”
“What does that mean again?” asked Petal. She could never quite remember which color meant what.
“Indigo means finding luck—right, Ruby?” asked Diamond as she tipped her white head to the sky.
“It sure does!” said Ruby. She thought back to their Operation Cheer Up Sky list. “Then we should totally do number four on our list after school: dig up something magical at Paradise Beach to give to Sky!”
Petal flapped her long pink ears, feeling excited. “Oh yes! We might even find a Wish Star, and then we’ll be able to wish Sky into being in Bounce-a-Lot.”
But the friends had to get through a whole day of school before they could go to Paradise Beach. Mr. Nibble was so grumpy he gave them a long and boring history test, while he sat at his desk chewing loudly on celery sticks. Petal could not concentrate with the sound of Mr. Nibble’s constant munching.
Sky didn’t make any jokes all day, and she didn’t even notice the faint purple stains that were left on her friends’ paws. Even after washing in Sparkle River, Diamond, Petal, and Ruby hadn’t been able to get rid of the purple completely. But luckily they were no longer leaving paw prints wherever they went.
As Ruby worked on the history test, the memory of Mr. Nibble in his red stripy nightcap kept popping into her head, but she tried not to laugh. She didn’t want to make him even angrier with her!
After school, Diamond, Ruby, and Petal met at Paradise Beach. “Let’s start over there,” said Ruby, pointing across the golden sand. “It looks as if that spot near the lake hasn’t been dug for ages. We totally have a better chance of finding something there.”
Petal tied up her ears and began digging right away, kneeling onto the sand and scooping out pawful after pawful. She was faster than Diamond and Ruby, because she had much bigger paws. Soon she’d dug a hole as deep as a tree, and when she peered into it to search for a magical gift, she tipped right in, ears first.
“Oops-a-daisy!” she said from the bottom of the hole, then added, “There’s no surprise in here!” Petal clambered out and quickly started a new hole right next to the old one. But she found nothing there either!
Unfortunately, the three friends weren’t the only ones at Paradise Beach. It seemed lots of other bunnies had spotted the indigo arc glowing on the Luck Rainbow, and the beach became crowded with rabbits flinging sand everywhere. Diamond had to keep shutting her eyes to stop grains of sand flying into them, which made digging pretty difficult. It also meant Diamond didn’t see Twinkle and Star heading toward them across the beach.
“Hellooooo!” Twinkle called out, and Diamond opened her eyes at the sound of her friend’s high, happy voice. The tiny green shape of Twinkle was hopping toward her, with Star walking much more slowly behind.
“You shouldn’t waste your energy jumping around, Twinkle,” Star told him. “We’ve got to save all our bouncing power for Bounce-a-Lot.”
Twinkle didn’t reply and kept on hopping, skidding to a stop in front of Diamond. “Have you found anything furbulous?”
“How long have you been here for?” Star asked before anyone could reply. She frowned at her sand-covered friends and the gigantic holes they’d made in the beach. “Those
holes are enormous!”
“Ages,” said Ruby. “Ever since the end of school.”
“We’ve got to find something to cheer up Sky!” said Petal.
Ruby nudged Petal’s paw. Petal suddenly remembered that she wasn’t meant to say anything to Twinkle and Star about Sky.
“Petal means we were looking for some awesome gifts. For everyone,” said Ruby, trying to cover up Petal’s mistake. But it was too late. Twinkle was frowning.
“Why does Sky need cheering up?” he asked.
Diamond tried to think of something to say so that they wouldn’t have to reveal Sky’s disappointment. But she didn’t want to lie to her friends.
“She’s just so very upset about not being a Bouncer!” Petal admitted, and her ears drooped with the sadness of it all.
“Oh flippety!” Twinkle flung his mint-green paws into the air. “I’ve been so busy-busy with practicing I hadn’t thought of that! Sky really wanted to be a Bouncer, didn’t she? Poor Sky!”
“We’ve tried heaps of things to make her feel better,” Ruby explained. “We made a list and everything! But we haven’t been lucky at all.”
Star twitched her golden nose. “I can understand she’s disappointed. But I did tell Sky before that she needed to practice every day, all-year round, not just a few weeks before Bounce-a-Lot.”
Twinkle glared up at Star. “Not everyone can be like you, Star. I didn’t bounce every day, and I was chosen.” Twinkle turned to Petal, Diamond, and Ruby and squeaked, “Oh, I feel utterly dreadful! I should have been helping you, but all I’ve been doing is bouncing!”
Petal put a paw around little Twinkle as tears sprung to his eyes. “It’s absolutely not your fault,” Petal said. “You didn’t know.”
“But I should have known!” Twinkle sniffed. “Oh, what are we going to do?”
“I’m not sure there’s much we can do now,” said Star gruffly. “Perhaps Sky will be happy enough to watch Bounce-a-Lot. After all, the next best thing to bouncing yourself is to see others doing it.”
Twinkle wasn’t so sure. He imagined being Sky and how terribly disappointed he’d feel not to be chosen as a Bouncer after wanting to be in the festival so badly. As the friends left the beach to go home for their suppers, Twinkle decided that he had to do something. He just had to work out what.
It was the day of Bounce-a-Lot. As Diamond, Petal, and Ruby hopped toward Hay Arena, Petal could hear the buzz of the crowd even before the stadium came into sight. No one in Bright Burrow ever missed Bounce-a-Lot—if they weren’t in it, then they’d be in the crowd watching it instead. But this year there would be one bunny missing. When the bunnies called at Sky’s burrow that morning, she had told them her toothache was too bad for her to come. Petal hadn’t believed Sky, but she’d insisted she was telling the truth.
The three friends hardly spoke as they hopped along together in the sunshine. Bounce-a-Lot wouldn’t be the same without Sky. Sitting in the crowd with her friends, she would talk and joke about what they were watching. Her commentary on the festival events was always so funny, it made Diamond laugh so hard her stomach ached for days afterward.
The three bunnies passed Carrot Central, which was closed today because of Bounce-a-Lot. Then Hay Arena came into view. The stadium was made of giant haystacks, built up on top of one another, and bunnies could grab pawfuls of the hay to eat while they watched a festival or sports event. Luckily, it meant they never had to get up from their seats for a snack!
Hundreds of bunnies were hopping into the haystack entrance, and chattering loudly about Bounce-a-Lot and what they were looking forward to most.
“I can’t wait to see the Team Hop and Skip,” Petal heard a little bunny say.
“My favorite is the Super Bounce,” his bushy-tailed friend replied. “Last year, a bunny jumped so high, she was just a dot in the sky, remember?”
Ruby, Diamond, and Petal scooted through the crowds into Hay Arena, and jumped up the hay steps inside. There weren’t many empty seats left, but they were lucky enough to find some toward the top of the stadium, where they had a great view of the whole arena.
“Look, there’s Star,” Diamond said, waving a now-white-again paw at their friend. Star was warming up on the far side of the grass below them—doing little star-jumps that made her ears flap up and down like a bird’s wings. Star didn’t look up, so she didn’t see her friends waving at her.
“Is that Twinkle?” asked Ruby, squinting at the center of the grass field below. All she could see was a tiny ball of mint green darting across it.
“I think so,” Diamond replied. “Why’s he running so fast? Shouldn’t he be saving his energy?”
Petal waved a pink paw. “Oh, you know what Twinkle is like. He cannot sit still for very long at all. And when he’s nervous he’s much worse.”
Ruby nodded her glossy red head to agree with Petal. “He’ll be totally fine once it starts. But I so wish he’d look up so we could say hello.”
Twinkle kept on scampering around, zooming about faster than the Clover Train. Then he disappeared into the Bouncer Box, a glass-fronted area on one side of the stadium. It was where all the Bouncers sat when they weren’t performing.
A marching bunny band strode onto the grass below and began playing the Bounce-a-Lot theme tune. “Oh, Sky loves this bit,” said Petal, missing Sky even more now. “She always sings along!”
The friends bopped their heads to the music, but they weren’t as excited as they normally were. They couldn’t stop thinking of Sky, sitting in her burrow all alone.
The band marched off the field, and the commentator’s deep voice boomed through the speakers. “Welcome, bunnies young and old, to the festival of the year. The one and only hoptastic, fantastic, leaping, jumping Bounce-a-Lot!”
The crowd of bunnies cheered and clapped as the teams ran out onto the grass. The first event was the Team Hop and Skip, where each team took turns performing a dance made up of different bounce-moves. The team from Oak Class did a dance where they all held paws and skipped together in different shapes to spell out the word LUCK. They ended in a move where they spun and leaped in a circle at the same time, and Diamond thought they looked just like a Hula-Hoop spinning in the air.
Next came the Leapfrog, in which each team formed a line, and the bunnies leaped over one another’s backs. As soon as the leaper had reached the end of their team’s line, they stopped to become a frog, and the bunny at the back of the line began leaping, until everyone in the team had taken a turn. Some of the bunnies did flicks and kicks as they leaped over their teammates, and Twinkle even somersaulted in the air every time he made a jump.
“Twinkle might be quite small,” said Petal, “but he’s ever so good at leapfrogging!”
“Next up is the Hoop Bounce!” said the commentator. “Please be patient while we get the hoops set up.”
The teams carried out twelve hoops and spread them out around the grass field. Each Bouncer took turns bouncing from hoop to hoop while trying not to land outside them. Star completed her round without making a single mistake.
“That was totally awesome, Star!” called Ruby as the crowd clapped for Star’s perfect round.
Bounce-a-Lot continued with the Super Bounce, where the members of each team stood on one another’s shoulders and did one big leap together. It was very tricky—in some of the teams, the Bouncer at the top lost their balance and fell off midbounce. In the Oak Class team, Twinkle was at the very top of the Super Bounce, but he managed to hold on as the six Bouncers flew up in the air in one giant jumping tower.
“Excellent work, Oak Class!” shouted Petal as she munched on a pawful of hay.
“Next is the final event,” the commentator’s voice boomed around the stadium. “This is what you’ve all been waiting for: the Bright Burrow Bouncy Big Bounce!”
Diamond clapped her paws together. “This is my favorite!” She felt a jolt of sadness when she remembered it was the one Sky liked the most, too.
Twink
le suddenly appeared on the hay step in front of them.
“What are you doing here?” Ruby asked him.
“Is everything quite all right?” said Petal.
Twinkle was looking around at the steps, as if he’d lost something. “Where’s Sky?” he squeaked.
Diamond gave a sigh. “She wouldn’t come,” Diamond told Twinkle sadly. “She said she still has a toothache.”
“What? No—no—no! I need her!” said Twinkle in an even squeakier voice.
“Why?” asked Ruby, twiddling a curly whisker. “Is something wrong? Is everyone on the team okay?”
Twinkle wrung his paws together. “Yes, we’re fine. But I’d organized something furbulously special for Sky so that she could be a part of Bounce-a-Lot after all—and now she’s not here!”
“Oh dear!” said Petal, flapping her ears furiously. “We could run back to Warren Street to get her,” she suggested, but Twinkle was shaking his tiny head.
“There’s simply no time for that,” he squeaked. “The Bright Burrow Bouncy Big Bounce is about to begin … Oh, and it was such a fantabulous surprise, too, even if I do say so myself!”
“That’s such bad luck,” said Ruby. “What was it?”
But Twinkle didn’t reply. He was staring at something at the back of the haystacks.
The bunnies turned to look. Diamond could see something fuzzy and blue in the shadows.
“Sky?” Twinkle said. “Is that you?”
The fuzzy blue thing hopped forward slowly. It was Sky! She smiled in a sheepish way and said, “Hey. I’m sorry. I didn’t think I wanted to come. But then I realized that there was no way could I miss Bounce-a-Lot, even if I’m not in it.”
“Have you been watching all this time?” asked Petal. “Why didn’t you come and sit with us?”
Sky shrugged. “I guess I was embarrassed,” she said. “As soon as you left my burrow earlier, I knew I was being silly. I followed you here and found a spot at the back where you wouldn’t see me.”
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